From Savitri
The final day of our tour has arrived, and it’s 8 down, 2 to go, on the Beethoven countdown. I’m sorry I couldn’t write about our ‘Day 4: Edinburgh’ experience yesterday, but there wasn’t a minute to spare during the day, and by the time we got back to our guesthouse after the concert, the only thought I had in my head was sleep!
The programme for the fourth instalment of #BeethovEnescu was the sonatas no. 2 (A major) and no. 7 (C minor) by Beethoven, and of course, ‘Scenes’. It was great to contrast these two vastly different sonatas – the A major has to be one of the funniest and silliest pieces Beethoven wrote, whilst in the C minor you feel that Beethoven is really taking on the world, and is (especially in the first and last movements) in a seriously bad mood. We were very chuffed that the audience actually laughed at the end of the A major, a reaction that, as the performer, you often want, but rarely get!
The venue of Edinburgh Society of Musicians is a charming 1st floor recital room, equipped with not one, but two excellent Steinway grand pianos, and an intimate atmosphere. We actually had about an hour to contemplate the warmth and cosiness of the venue from when we arrived at 6pm, as, due to a miscommunication, we were locked out of the building! The house is situated on a beautiful, and very quiet side street, and as we didn’t meet a soul as we waited, (gently freezing in the Edinburgh chill), we did wonder whether we’d actually be playing to anyone at all, if we ever got in… This must have been our comeuppance for complaining only the other day about the lack of dramatic concert experiences we’ve had. Anyway, thankfully we did eventually manage to make it inside the building, we had a lovely audience, and we managed to thaw our fingers in time for the scales at the beginning of Beethoven op 12/2.
It was also great to have Tom Chadwick of the Tunnell Trust at the concert last night; as we progress through our tour we continue to be extremely grateful to the Tunnell Trust for all their support and in enabling us to make our crazy #BeethovEnescu a reality.